[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!
Melanie Faith
Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.
Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.
The Society of Professional Journalists
In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.
I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.
Maxine Greene
Philosopher and Education Scholar
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Beautiful
You’ve got to get up every morning
With a smile in your face
And show the world all the love in your heart
Then people gonna treat you better
You’re gonna find, yes you will
That you’re beautiful, as you feel
Carole King, “Beautiful”
I had an 8-track tape player as a child. It was bright yellow, and I changed the tracks by pressing a handle on top of the machine. Hours turned to days turned to years as I listened to music through it. My parents had an 8-track tape of Tapestry, so one of my favorite singers was Carole King. One of my favorite tracks on Tapestry was “Beautiful.” If I had a dollar for every time I listened to that song I would be a gazillionaire. I tell this story to illustrate the point that even as a child long enough ago to be listening to an 8-track, hearing that I was beautiful, and taking that message to heart, was truly important.
I still struggle to see myself as beautiful. That is probably the case for most women, but Turner syndrome can make it even harder for me to recognize my beauty. My beauty is lost in not and too. Not tall enough. Not skinny enough. My neck is too wide. My fingers are too chubby. My skin has too many moles. Even my elbows are too pointy and inside out. That is the external separation from beauty I experience when I am in a compare-myself-to-everyone, judgmental frame of mind.
As a creature of consumer culture, my world is not wired to understand the notion that internal beauty is equally, or perhaps more, important than external beauty. I know in my head and heart that there is no beauty without internal beauty, but society sells a different story. I am tired of buying the external beauty story. Maybe it’s because age is softening my inner critic. Maybe it’s because I have met beautiful people of all descriptions. Maybe it’s because beautiful and ugly are so apparent when it comes to looking at our actions. Maybe it’s because beauty expands, includes, and embraces as I age. I am not sure.
Today, I know Carole King has it right. Our beauty is dependent on the love we share with the world. We are love in the world. We respond to love with love. That is beautiful
About Katie
From Louisville. Live in Atlanta. Curious by nature. Researcher by education. Writer by practice. Grateful heart by desire.
Buy the Book!
The Stage Is On Fire, a memoir about hope and change, reasons for voyaging, and dreams burning down can be purchased on Amazon.
